Techmeme
May 8, 2020, 7:35 AM

Top News

Abby Ohlheiser / MIT Technology Review:
A look at the symbiotic ties of anti-vaxxers and COVID-19 conspiracy theorists with mainstream YouTubers, as the platform tries to regulate misinformation  —  Covid-19 conspiracy theorists are still getting millions of views on YouTube, even as the platform cracks down on health misinformation.
BuzzFeed News:
In filing, Clearview AI says it is canceling client accounts not associated with law enforcement or other government entities, amid mounting scrutiny  —  Clearview AI — the controversial face-tracking company known for scraping more than 3 billion photos from social media sites including Facebook …
Babu Mohan / Android Central:
Samsung says it will launch a debit card in partnership with fintech startup SoFi, this summer  —  Samsung Pay will help you do more with your money this year.  —  Source: Android Central  —  What you need to know  — To elevate the Samsung Pay experience, Samsung is partnering with SoFi to launch an “innovative” debit card.
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google brings all of its messaging and communication apps under a single team to be led by Javier Soltero, who is VP and GM of G Suite  —  Integration isn't on the roadmap, but coherency may be  —  In October of last year, Google hired Javier Soltero to be the VP and GM of G Suite …
Financial Times:
Sources: UK's NHS has already begun developing a second contact tracing app in parallel, using technology provided by Google and Apple  —  NHS team that built first app is told to build another on Apple-Google system  —  The NHS has already begun building a second smartphone app to trace …
Isabelle Kirkwood / BetaKit:
Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs says it will no longer pursue its smart city project at Quayside in Toronto due to “unprecedented economic uncertainty”  —  Sidewalk Labs has announced it will no longer pursue its project at Quayside in Toronto.  The company noted the decision was due to the current …
Ari Levy / CNBC:
Zoom is acquiring Keybase, a 25-person startup, to add end-to-end encryption to video calls, the first acquisition in the company's nine-year history  —  - Zoom is acquiring Keybase, a 25-person start-up in New York, to add end-to-end encryption to video calls.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Google expands Read Along, its Android app that uses AI to help children read via verbal and visual feedback in nine languages, from India to 180+ countries  —  Google today launched Read Along, an Android app that taps AI and machine learning to help children learn to read by providing verbal and visual feedback.
Frank X. Shaw / Microsoft on the Issues:
Microsoft communications VP, Frank Shaw, says Amazon has filed another protest against Microsoft's JEDI deal, this time out of public view, directly with DoD  —  Many years ago when I was on active duty as a Marine officer in the 1980s, I went through cold weather training carrying …
James Vincent / The Verge:
Google updates its Lens app for iOS and Android to let users copy and paste some handwritten text to Chrome, read text aloud, and provide information on words  —  If you handwriting is neat enough  —  Google has added a very useful feature to Google Lens, its multipurpose object recognition tool.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
A researcher found NSO Group's contact tracing system, codenamed “Fleming”, unprotected on the Internet, NSO says system was a demo, hence not a security lapse  —  As countries work to reopen after weeks of lockdown, contact-tracing apps help to understand the spread of the deadly coronavirus strain, COVID-19.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Private equity firm Vista Equity Partners says it will invest $1.5B in Reliance Jio Platforms, which would give it a 2.32% stake, valuing the telco firm at $65B  —  Private equity firm Vista Equity Partners said on Friday it will invest $1.5 billion in Reliance Jio Platforms …
Owen Churchill / South China Morning Post:
Citizen Lab: WeChat screens overseas users for sensitive content, which it then bars from being viewed by Chinese accounts  —  Research group Citizen Lab finds WeChat screens overseas users for sensitive content, which it then bars from being received by Chinese accounts Findings are likely …
Nick Statt / The Verge:
A Facebook SDK crash caused iOS apps like TikTok and Venmo to crash on Wednesday, showing the need for Apple to sandbox third-party SDKs from an app's own code  —  Facebook's near-ubiquitous SDK broke yesterday, taking major mobile apps with it  —  Sometime around 6:30PM ET on May 6th …
Kevin Collier / NBC News:
Report: Facebook posts from 2012 show Iran's national broadcaster trialed a US political influence campaign via 300+ fake accounts, years earlier than thought  —  The attempts seem to be experiments that were quickly abandoned, and none of those identified received substantial engagement.

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More News

Lora Kolodny / CNBC:
Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch:
Amir Efrati / The Information:
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:

Earlier Picks

Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Kate Conger / New York Times:
Dana Wollman / Engadget: